


Counting Bodies (Like Sheep)

by roane



Series: The Blood-Dimmed Tide [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Amnesia, Blood, Brainwashing, Cutting, Knifeplay, Loyalty, M/M, Oral Sex, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:02:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1682621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roane/pseuds/roane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Waking each time with little memory of his past is no longer unsettling. It just is, the way the weight of a rifle in his hands just is, the way the knife dancing over his metal fingers just is. He remembers enough. He knows that Second is a tactician in a way that he is not, and doubles as a good spotter to his sniper." </p><p>The Winter Soldier program produced two assets who've remained active into the 21st Century.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Bodies (Like Sheep)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this photoset](http://tumblr.selkie.net/post/86539456993/dark-au-steve-and-bucky-are-the-winter-soldiers). Title from [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ByMEx50Zc).

They know only what they need to know about each other. They are First and Second--not because of any ranking of their skill or mission counts, but simply because that is what they are: the first and second men to come out of the Winter Soldier program alive and functioning. They are also, based on what First overhears from one of the technicians, the only two survivors of the program. Like the Black Widow program, the mortality rate among assets is high.

They’ve had other missions together, but First doesn’t recall them. Waking each time with little memory of his past is no longer unsettling. It just is, the way the weight of a rifle in his hands just is, the way the knife dancing over his metal fingers just is. He remembers enough. He knows that Second is a tactician in a way that he is not, and doubles as a good spotter to his sniper.

That’s all he needs to know.

Their mission is simple. One scientist, no matter how clever, can’t evade them forever. One rifle shot and the man exiting the limousine falls. Second starts taking apart the sniper sight with deft, efficient gestures, then reaches for his phone to call it in.

“Wait,” First says. His voice is rusty from disuse.

“For what.”

First shifts his stance. They need to move, and quickly. “Let’s get out of here first.”

Something is different this time. He can’t say why. Maybe it’s this city. Cities are always unsettling, this one more than most. It’s a warzone, rubble still piled where buildings once stood before an alien invasion. First and Second hadn’t seen it, but they saw references throughout the city: makeshift memorials, whole walls of missing person posters.

He doesn’t want to leave right away. When they make it back to the safe house, Second takes out the phone once more.

“They won’t be expecting us for another four hours, at the earliest,” First says. He knows, right then, what he wants. He lets his eyes rest on Second’s face for a moment too long. It’s a good face: blond hair framing the angles. Open, even capable of feigning friendliness when necessary, if one doesn’t linger too long on his eyes, which are the hard, glacial blue of a killer. First likes those eyes. They scream of what Second is, the same way the red star on First’s metal shoulder does--the red star that once decorated missiles pointing at their masters’ enemies. They are First and Second, and they were here before the missiles.

First lingers on those blue eyes before dropping his gaze to Second’s shoulders and broad chest. Maybe they’ve danced this dance before. How would they know?

Second presses a button on the phone and drops it on the desk. He’s still in his armor, but he peels the tape and webbing open and shucks it over his head, striding forward. When he strikes, it’s inhumanly fast. His fist winds in First’s over-long dark hair and pulls his head back. First grimace-smiles, the adrenaline flooding his body like bitter wine, heart pounding as their mouths collide. His scalp tingles and stings pleasantly, his neck pulled at a taut, uncomfortable angle as they bite and kiss. Second crowds him back against the wall, holding him in place with his body while his free hand works to strip off First’s armor.

Once the body armor is tossed away, Second is on him again, pressing against his chest and fastening his mouth to First’s throat. They both groan. It’s so… human, flesh against flesh. But it’s also so _them_ , flesh against flesh with the constant possibility for bloodshed. Second bites as if he wants to rip out First’s throat and all it does is make Second arch and grind his hips against the other man’s.

First is too urgent in his haste to pull off Second’s shirt, and it tears in his metal hand. It inflames something in him and he surges forward, flipping them around and slamming Second into the wall hard enough to make plaster dust puff up. Before he thinks, his knife is in his hand and flipped around so that the silver of the blade gleams against Second’s faintly golden skin, flat resting over his heart.

They stare at one another, breathing heavy through open mouths. First trails just the tip of the knife, no pressure, barely enough to scratch. He’s aware of his cock throbbing in time with his heart. He’s struck with the urge to mark this man, to mar his skin, to leave a sign that he’s been here. Would it remind him, later? If he had initials, he would carve them over the heart.

“Are you going to cut me or fuck me?” Second says, low.

“Why not both?” First says, the unfamiliar sensation of a grin tugging at his mouth. He feels reckless. What they’re doing is reckless, and for all that they take risks every time they’re let loose on the world, recklessness is discouraged. Harshly.

Second reaches for the knife, but instead of taking it or turning it, his hand covers First’s and he guides the knife in a slow even slash downward. Not deep, but enough that blood wells up and begins to drip. He closes his eyes and shudders, fingers tightening. When he opens his eyes again, they are dark and burning. He licks his lips. “There. Now you can fuck me.”

First drags in a slow, drugged breath, staring at the cut, then sets aside the knife. He curls his fingers against the cut, feeling the trickle of blood already slowing thanks to Second’s remarkable healing powers. With his metal hand, he pulls him down to kiss him, this time with slow intensity, mouths soft like lovers this time.

The knife has changed something, sliced through any need to be in control, through the urge for power, and lets them put down their guards. They wind up on the sleeping bags spread in one corner. At first they’re all hands and mouths, not bothering to take off their pants, just kissing and touching, First’s flesh hand leaving smears of blood against Second’s skin as he traces line after line of muscle.

He rolls them over, settling in the cradle of Second’s thighs and pressing their joined hands to the floor. He uses the leverage to rock his hips hard into Second’s, feeling their cocks catch and rub through layers of fabric. Second arches beneath him and First fastens his mouth to that tender, exposed line of neck, rutting his hips hard, almost too hard.

The only sound in the room is their harsh breaths, the sucking sound of mouth against flesh, and the hiss of fabric against fabric. It could end like this, indirect friction giving them each what they want, but it’s not enough. First pushes up and away, going to his knees to unfasten his belt and pants. Second watches him with wary, heated eyes, sliding a hand down to palm his own cock through his pants.

First’s vision doubles, two conflicting images trying to resolve somewhere in his mind. It happens now and then, some part of his unknown past pushing forward. He’s done this before, knelt over a body this way, aroused and eager. The body beneath him is wrong: too big, too powerful. Only the eyes are the same. He shakes his head free of the vision, and pushes down his pants. Second reaches for his cock, but First has something else he wants. He kicks free of his pants and boots and crawls up Second’s body, noting each scar, each smear of blood, listening to the hitch in Second’s breathing. There’s a purpling bruise on his neck that’s almost as good as the bloody initials he doesn’t have.

They meet somewhere in the middle, Second sliding down between First’s hips. It’s as much of an act of teamwork as their mission earlier, two parts of the same machine with one goal. First presses his hands against the wall and thrusts his hips forward, knowing without looking that Second’s mouth is waiting.

It’s hot and wet and rough and so good. He hears the sound of a zipper and a surge of arousal makes him twitch against Second’s lips at the thought of the man beneath him sliding a hand into his pants. They find a rhythm easily, and he’s focused on how much he _needs_ this. ‘Need’ is not a concept that comes easily, and ‘want’ is almost unfathomable. Still, he knows this mouth, the slick lips, the teasing scrape of teeth, the tongue that knows where to stroke and how. He knows how hard and how fast he can drive them, how much the man beneath him can take, and how much he wants to take.

 _He knows_. The words are a backlit door in his mind, padlocked and deadbolted and marked with warning signs. He thinks if he reached for that door now, he could open it, locks and all.

He squeezes his eyes closed and turns away from the door, focused only on sensation, on the hand that’s gripping his hip and the mouth that’s fucking him. Second is moaning around his cock like he’s delirious; First looks down to see the flushed face, red lips, white lines of strain on his forehead, blue eyes open and rolling with pleasure, like he’s pleading for his own orgasm.

Second’s mouth opens with a grunt as he comes, hard enough that First feels some of it splatter against his back, warm then cooling. He’s still moaning with the pleasure of it when he closes his mouth around First again, sucking his way through the rest of the pleasure.

First closes his eyes and tilts his head back, focus narrowing down to the mouth around his cock. There’s a name behind his eyes and it wants to come out of his mouth. He bites his lips hard against it, growling instead. That name and the man beneath him have no connection now, if they ever did.

It screams in his head as his belly tightens, drives him to chase the physical pleasure that might blot out the sound, the images coming into focus.

Finally he comes with a jerk, body bowing and arms shaking. He drops his head between his arms and sees the man beneath him still writhing and sucking. It’s too much.

“St--”

Blue eyes fly open.

First swallows harshly. “Stop.” He pulls away, rolling so he’s on his knees beside Second. His hand is trembling, so he presses it into his thigh. Too close, it was too close. Reckless.

The glowing door is cracked and it’s up to him to slam it shut. To go back to sleep. Asleep is better. Asleep is not knowing.

He rocks to his feet and reaches for his pants. “Call them,” he says, getting dressed.

Second smiles up at him, still undressed. It’s too close to the truth, that smile. “You said four hours.”

First jerks his belt closed and doesn’t look at him anymore. “Call them now.”

“But--”

He’s got his metal hand around Second’s throat and has lifted him off the ground before the final ‘t’ of that word sounds, hearing only the echoing past in the first part of the word. He shakes Second like a doll. “Shut up and fucking call them.” He drops him and turns away, packing up the last of their gear.

About a minute later he hears Second on the phone, “It’s done. At the extraction point in ten minutes.”

First shoulders his bag. He knows what he’s done. What _they’ve_ done. The only thing that keeps him from running is that Second doesn’t know. He was always the better of the two of them. Knowing would--no. Better asleep. Better this than the knowledge of what they’ve become.

It’ll be gone soon. If he can just hang on. They’ll take him and remake him for the next time and he won’t have this other in his head anymore.

Then they’ll be safe. Steve will be safe.

“Let’s go,” he says, and walks out, knowing he’ll be followed.


End file.
